Woman builds house from scrap 747

Jumbo project

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A California woman who owns a 55-acre property in Malibu and was looking to build a "curvilinear/feminine" property from which to enjoy the views, has decided to knock the whole thing up from bits of an old Boeing 747.

That's the bold plan of her architects Syndesis, Inc, self-described as "innovators whose work crosses established boundaries to stake out new imaginative territories with an orientation towards the future", and who proposed acquiring an entire Jumbo and using every component of it, "like the Native American Indians used every part of the buffalo".

By the time Francie Rehwald - whose family owns one of California's biggest Merc dealerships - moves into her new gaff, her wallet will be several million dollars lighter, the BBC reckons. The second-hand aircraft alone set Rehwald back $100,000 before architect David Hertz even got stuck in with the tin-opener and snips.

One 2,500sqft 747 wing, Hertz says, provides the "ideal configuration to maximise the views and provide a self supporting roof with minimal additional structural support needed".

"The floating roofs will derive simple support from steel brace frames, which will attach to strategic mounting points on the wing where the engines were previously mounted. Frameless, structural self-supporting glass will create the enclosure from the concrete slab on grade into the wing as roof."

In total, Hertz is looking to recycle the aircraft's 4.5m components as an "extreme example of sustainable reuse and appropriation". He notes: "American consumers and industry throw away enough aluminium in a year to rebuild our entire aeroplane commercial fleet every three months."

Naturally, the powers that be have chipped in their two bits' worth on the matter. According to the Beeb, "[Rehwald] has been asked by the civil aviation authorities to mark the elements of the plane visible from the sky to show that they are not part of a crashed aircraft". ®